**Spoiler Alert**
Director: Anjelina Jolie/Starring: Jack O'Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund and Takamasa Ishihara
Based on Laura Hillenbrand's bestselling book, Unbroken , Anjelina Jolie's film of the same name comes as somewhat of a surprise. Even before its release, the shark's circled and the early assessments of the film were scathing and negative. I must admit I was loading my own harpoon, waiting draw blood from I what I was sure would be an egregious mess. Jolie's first feature film, In the Land of Blood and Honey, vanished immediately from the few theaters it actually played; critical response was overwhelmingly negative and many sniggered that Jolie's hubris knew no limits.
I can honestly say her new film, while hardly being a towering, cinematic achievement, is also not as bad as one might expect. I didn't say it was good, mind you; only that I've seen worse on movie screens this year. It is watchable and sometimes almost moving. That might not galvanize anyone to speed to the local multiplex but after seeing recent rank sewage like Horrible Bosses 2, Jolie's film comes off comparatively well. That in itself is not exactly fulsome praise.
It was a shrewd move to hire the Coen brothers and veteran screen-scribes Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King) and William Nicholson (Shadowlands) to adapt a book that was probably screen-ready in conception.
Unbroken tells the incredible story of Louis Zamperini, a WWII bombardier whose plane went down into the Pacific during a rescue mission. One of three who survived the crash, Zamperini and fellow crew-members endured blistering heat, sharks, thirst and starvation before being captured by the Japanese Navy then laboring in POW camps for the duration of the war.
But the story isn't solely concerned with his indelible experiences; it is also about a man's indomitable spirit; one his maritime ordeal or unimaginable brutality he suffered in POW camps couldn't erode.
The film begins with Louis as a young man; son of Italian immigrants, surviving in a small, Californian town sometime in the 1920s'. Louis finds himself subject to racist, anti-immigrant bullying; much of it meted out by neighborhood kids. When he isn't fighting off kids his age, Louis is prone to mischief and petty crime; stealing, drinking and smoking, and often on the run from the authorities, literally and figuratively. His running skills come to the attention of his older brother's track coach during a school meet. While his brother Pete (Alex Russell) warms up, Louis is discovered under the bleachers; peeking under skirts. He eludes his would-be captors with some nimble running, which impresses his brother and the coach.
Louis' channels his sprints from the authorities into track; which proves to be a more practical and constructive outlet. He excels in track, first in high school, then later in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Louis doesn't win but his astonishing closing speed impresses the crowd.
Later, after WWII breaks out, Louis finds himself serving in the Pacific. One harrowing bombing mission leaves the plane riddled with bullet holes and on the return to base, the pilots barely bring the craft in for a landing intact.
Not long after, during said rescue mission, an engine failure causes the plane to crash into the ocean. Two inflatable rafts become home for Louis and two fellow crewman. Forty-five days at sea bring them into contact with sharks, fish and a seagull, who they catch and eat when their rations run out. A shot of the three men vomiting over the sides of the raft, expelling the inedible fowl, is somewhat amusing. The men are able to stave off starvation by catching and eating sharks raw. On another day, an aircraft they wave down turns out to be a Japanese fighter plane, which strafes their raft. They emerge from the incident unharmed and manage to repair the raft.
After one of the men perishes from their sea-going adversity, Louis and his fellow crew-member are rescued--by a Japanese naval vessel.
One might think a month and a half on a life raft would be trying enough, but Louis finds his suffering has only begun. After a brief incarceration in a Japanese camp, he is transferred to a POW camp on the Japanese mainland which holds many American, British and Australian soldiers. Louis becomes quickly acquainted with the sadistic camp officer Mutsuhiro Watanabe (Takamasa Ishihara), who torments him after Louis' ill-advised eye contact during a troop inspection. Watanabe strikes Louis with his bamboo cane; the first of many such beatings. He manages to also break his nose in the process. More humiliations and torturous incidents follow.
Louis' troubles seem to wane when he learns Watanabe is to be promoted and transferred. But when the prisoners are also transferred, he discovers Watanabe has been assigned to his camp. Shortly thereafter, Watanabe resumes his brutal agenda; and the abuse and degradation come to a head in a final test of endurance and pain, which tests Louis' motto "If I can take it, I can make it;" motivational words he borrows from his older brother.
The story itself is powerful. Jolie handles material usually reserved for male directors well. The story is well paced and the performances solid but the film is told in a straightforward manner; nuance-free and without any serendipitous departures from the trailer. Though I knew nothing about Zamperini's experiences prior to the film, I felt the trailer really told the whole story. Unfortunately, this happens a lot with American movies.
Jolie shows us Louis' travails but she doesn't transmute the experiences into wrenching drama. We know Zamperini suffered abominably but we don't get a sense of the physical or mental trauma he endured. I imagine part of the problem may lie in the casting of Takamasa Ishihara as the vicious Sergeant. A projected on-screen photo of the real Watanabe is seen after the film and based on what is seen, I felt Ishihara's face to be too soft; lacking the square-jawed features of his real-life counterpart. Ishihara behaves petulantly rather than menacingly, unlike Ralph Fiennes' Amon Goeth in Schindler's List, whose very presence in that film made one tremble. Ishihara affects brutishness, but he doesn't frighten or intimidate, which is one of the film's major shortcomings.
Rather than establishing pathos as the film's overriding emotion, I was left feeling not much of anything other than surprise that the film wasn't as bad as I anticipated. Maybe I've seen too many films like Unbroken. The Railway Man from earlier this year also dealt with prisoners in a Japanese labor camp and also told a true story. Fatigue has definitely taken hold. Or maybe the film suffers from--as one critic put it--conventional storytelling. Could be.
Kudos to Jolie for taking on a film that might be too big for her limited experience. I don't want to consign her just yet to irrelevance. Given the limited roles for women in the film industry, Jolie deserves the opportunities her male film-making counterpart enjoy; certainly as much as that paragon of lunkheadedness, Michael Bay
Many of my fellow cinephiles say they have little interest in seeing Jolie's film. I can't say I blame them but if the film pales next to the season's best, it has also proved to be no worse than The Hobbit or Exodus: Gods and Kings.
Yeah, I know; that isn't exactly fulsome praise either.
